Influence of vanadium precursor powder size on microstructures and properties of W–V alloy

•W-5 wt.%V have been produced from submicron/micron V precursor powder by mechanical alloying and subsequently consolidated by spark plasma sintering technique.•The standard XRD peaks position of pure W is specified by red line in Fig. 2.•Black clusters of W5Vm are V enriched phases.•China National Funds for Distinguished Young Scientists under grant 51325103

To understand the influences of V precursor powder size on the microstructures and properties of W–V alloy, W–5 wt.% V have been produced from submicron/micron V precursor powder by mechanical alloying and subsequently consolidated by spark plasma sintering technique. The results indicate that the grain growth of W is highly constrained and the porosity is largely suppressed by the addition of V. Compared with micron V powder, the introduction of submicron V powder not only makes the microstructure much finer and more uniform but also improves the densification and mechanical properties of W–V alloy. Significantly, submicron V-containing alloy shows enormous improvement in micro-hardness of about 70% higher than micron V-containing alloy and more than 3 times as high as pure W.